At the last meeting of the Local Staff Committee of Brussels, DG HR shared significant data regarding sickness leave and invalidity. They underlined that some of these data require further analysis which they intend to conduct to clarify reasons why, for example, more women than men are reported sick. Generation 2004 wrote a note to DG HR to request information on the timeline concerning further analysis and the dissemination of the results, which should include:
- Any identifiable causes that could explain why women were reported sick more often than men and if there is a correlation between women-specific aspects such as childcare, sickness (breast, uterus cancer etc.) or other reasons and the absences. If it is the case, the fact of removing pap test and mammography from the annual check-up and having them in screening programs only after 50 years old is something completely unacceptable, putting health at risk for small savings;
- Any identifiable causes that could explain why there was such a high rate of burn out and psychiatric disorders in 2023 and a comparison with previous years (which was not presented during the meeting);
- Any identifiable causes why there was such a higher rate (2021-2023) of sickness in OIB and PMO compared to other services in the Commission, including elements such as age and gender composition, types of illnesses and contract types, on top of the type of job (manual work vs office work etc), and if this striking difference in sickness rate between PMO and OIB and other parts of the Commission has remained stable over the years, if actions were put in place to reduce it and the results obtained, plus the ex-ante and ex-post evaluations made;
- A cross-comparison of the sick leave and invalidity rates in 2023 with the previous years since 2017, to have an analysis based on larger data and avoiding concentrating on 2020-21 when the data available is largely influenced by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic;
- Any identifiable causes that could explain why there are so many invalidity cases between 2020 and 2021 compared to previous years for both genders, plus data covering the whole period since 2017;
Additionally, Generation 2004 asked DG HR to explain if and how the calculation of the sick leave period for the purposes of invalidity has been modified in recent times, supposedly resulting in invalidity procedures being opened earlier than before as it was the case in the past.
Generation 2004 also underlined that information available on invalidity procedure [1] and the relevant rules on MyIntracomm is almost nonexistent (the very short paragraph available there mentions that “More information will be available soon” ). Generation 2004 finally advocated for making more complete and updated information available to staff as soon as possible to increase transparency.
As always, if you have questions, please feel free to contact us [2].